Metro Washington Council afl-cio

We have come here through toil and weary marches, through storms and tempests, over mountains, and amid the trials of poverty and distress, to lay our grievances at the doors of our National Legislature and ask them in the name of Him whose banners we bear, in the name of Him who plead for the poor and the oppressed, that they should heed the voice of despair and distress that is now coming up from every section of our country, that they should consider the conditions of the starving unemployed of our land, and enact such laws as will give them employment, bring happier conditions to the people, and the smile of contentment to our citizens.When Coxey tried to speak at the U.S. Capitol in 1894, police arrested him for walking on the grass. Fifty years to the day later, on May 1, 1944, Coxey finally delivered this speech from the steps of the U.S. Congress.